Day number four of my challenge. I think I'm ready to take this a step further and actually write about something. I've been going over the list I made before I started this challenge, trying to find the one that spoke to me the most today.
A little background information to get started...I have been divorced for almost five years. I have three children with my ex-husband, ages 15, 13 and 10. My divorce wasn't "messy" in the way that some divorces are. There was no fighting over assets, retirement plans, savings, etc. That is mostly due to the fact that we didn't really have any of that.
However, it wasn't exactly a friendly divorce, either. I was the one who asked for the divorce. I had been unhappy in my marriage for quite a while, but I never had the courage to do anything about it. I mean, how could I afford to raise three kids on my own? Who would watch them and bring them to practices, games, etc. on the weekends I worked?
I won't get into the actual details of the divorce right now. I'll save that for another post. Instead, I want to write about what happened this past summer.
One night, I got a call at work from my boyfriend (who lives with us). My older daughter - my middle child who was ALMOST a teenager at the time of this event - had just screamed some vulgarities at her father (on the phone) and hung up on him. When she refused to answer when he called back, he took the next best route, and called my younger daughter - the baby of the three. When my boyfriend called, my youngest was underneath the kitchen table, not saying anything except "mm hmm" and "yup". She was practically in tears.
So, I tried calling her, but she did not answer. My son, who is the oldest, texted me and said that she was on the phone with Dad.
Looking back, much of the next few minutes - actually probably closer to an hour - are a blur now. But I remember the gist of what happened very well. My older daughter had hung up on her father because he - once again - had started bad-mouthing my boyfriend and I. She called him out on that and a few other things that had been on her mind. He was not happy about her accusations and the fact that she wasn't "buying into his story" as much as usual and said a few things back to her. She got angry and hung up. With her definitely out of his corner, he did what he does best - he went after another victim. As I said earlier, after this confrontation, he called my youngest - who was only 9 at the time. He took out his aggressions on her, which led to her crying under the kitchen table.
At this point, my son stepped in. Although he will swear to you that he "hates" his sisters, he stepped right up and took over as the "man of the house." He started texting his father to distract him from the current phone call and got his sister to hang up. The conversation, via text, between him and his father went something like this:
DAD: Now your sister is acting like a bitch just like her mother.
SON: I know, dad. She has a lot on her plate right now. Just being a typical teenage girl with teenage girl drama.
DAD: I don't care what she has going on. She is a bitch just like her mother.
Enough said there...
So, the next morning, I went to the courthouse and applied for a modification of custody/visitation, asking that he not be allowed to communicate with them at all - including via phone calls or text. I decided that they were too young to be forced to "choose" or to have to constantly listen to him talk about me in a derogatory way. It wasn't fair to them, and it was my responsibility to protect them in any way I could.
I told the kids what I was doing. Both the girls were ok with it...they actually told me they were relieved that I stepped in and took the decision away from them. My son, on the other hand, wasn't sure how he felt about it. He asked me if I could just ask the courts to stop the communication with the girls. I told him that I could not do that because if I did, he would be at the receiving end of all the negativity. A little reluctant, he agreed.
I received my paperwork from the court about 2 weeks later, with our "first appearance" date and time on it. The court date was set for another month out. UGH...so much waiting. I half wondered if my ex would even show up. Needless to say, he did, and this is how the case proceeded:
As many of you know, a "first appearance" usually doesn't amount to much. We go in front of the judge, he asks if we reached an agreement, offers the respondent a chance to get an attorney and we usually get sent out with another court date set up. That's pretty much what I was expecting at this hearing. But, to be safe, I had pages and pages of text messages printed out - text messages between him and the kids with the derogatory statements he continually made to the kids about me, and messages to me saying that he "refused" to follow the court's previous rulings and that he didn't care about the kids anyway, that he had no problem giving them up completely. I even had a letter from one of my child's therapists who said that she felt the relationship between that child and the father was detrimental to the child's well-being. I was prepared!
What I wasn't prepared for was what happened next. He told the judge he was fine with whatever I wanted. This is coming from a man who spent the last four years doing everything he could to try to make my life miserable. While I was expecting to win the case - eventually - I was also expecting a fight. I did not get one. Three times, the judge asked him if he wanted to get a lawyer - that the court could appoint him one if couldn't afford one - and come back to court at a later date. Three times, the judge asked him if he was SURE he understood what I was asking for, and that he did not need to make a decision at that time. Three times, he gave in.
While this is what I wanted, and I truly believe my kids are better off now, I was devastated that someone who claimed to love his kids so much could just walk away and not even put up a fight. How was I going to explain to my kids that he just gave up? Even though I won, part of us lost. Sometimes, winning is really losing.
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